Incommunicado
by Mountain King
Summary: The grand tale of a single letter sent by one Buffy Summers and just how far it had to go to finally reach it's destination


Incommunicado

Authors Note:-  
A quick one here. I've been having trouble, yet again with my existing stories just not working so I decided to try my hand at something new. A daft little idea I had.

* * *

It was a simple letter, just a few words. If the person that wrote it knew just what sort of journey the folded sheet of paper was about to undertake maybe they might have understood. Maybe it wouldn't be written quite that way.

Just maybe.

Posted to the box at the end of the drive, that was as far as it was expected to go. Only the person it was meant for wasn't in. They were away on business. In almost any other case this would mean it would languish in the box until they returned, however that was not what happened.

A couple of days later a young man arrived, used his key to open the box before heading inside. He had no idea what was in the letter, he had only met the homeowner a few times. Seemed like a nice enough guy even if he was out overseas a lot. The young man checked the house, made sure the dust sheets were over the furniture and that nothing had been damaged or broken into.

It was a regular house, part of a regular street. Nothing stood out at all and it was perfectly safe. The young man had absolutely no idea that he had secretly gone through one of the most stringent and in depth background checks anywhere. Or just how far the innocuous looking letter was going.

Once his inspection was done he locked up being himself and headed back to his car, calling his girlfriend to make arrangements for her sister's birthday party later that week.

By the time of the party he had already handed the letter, along with the handful of others he'd collected, to his boss and thought nothing of it. His boss, also blissfully ignorant of the investigation that was done into his past and present, packaged up the post and put it on a plane.

On the trip it travelled across America and over the ocean. From California to the island of Great Britain. Collecting a number of other packages of letters to loved ones all heading, ultimately, to the same place. London, however, was just another stop and not the final destination.

The packages were delivered to a TV studio in Wessex, and from there to a small office. Each package was weighed, checked and sent on to the relevant department.

That department was another office, deep in the complex where a trained operative was handed the package containing the letter. As was protocol they opened and scanned every piece. Electronic devices testing the chemicals of the paper, analysing every trace. Radiation detectors, biological contaminates. every conceivable test and then some. At the same time a computer copied and read the document under every available spectrum of light. The words ran through every possible cypher while the officer, a trained psychologist by trade read it.

With a sad sigh she marked off a report on the contents, making a note to amend the recipients file when possible. As well as requesting that a copy of her report be sent to their superior.

The letter was then repackaged with the others and passed on to a special currier who took it into the back room of the Studio. in reality one of a scant few secret entrances to the underground headquarters of SHADO.

Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation had existed for decades, the secret thin line between the people of Earth and the near constant threat from those beyond. Very few people, even those that worked at the TV studio's used as a cover, knew just how important their work was. Since the mid 1970's Aliens had been using Earth as a playground, kidnapping people and experimenting on them. In most cases stealing their organs and surgically implanting them in their own people, creating twisted hybrids for some unfathomable reason.

The letter was put on a transport, headed for the organisation's hidden launch pad. To be sent to SHADO's front line base. Addressed to it's current commander. To be sent up with the latest supply mission. In the dead of night the rocket was launched, hurtling on remote the vast distance to it's final destination.

The Earth's Moon

Not five minutes after landing, but more than two weeks after being sent, Base Commander Hank Summers read the letter informing him of his ex-wife's death, and the anger of his eldest daughter for not being there.

End Incommunicado

* * *

Authors postscript:-  
I was wondering what rational reason could Hank have for not being there for Buffy and Dawn after Joyce's death.

This one seems barely adequate.

Disclaimer:-  
I own none of the characters or concepts used here. Hank Summers is from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, owned by Mutant Enemy, and SHADO is from UFO, owned by ITV studios.


End file.
